A Traveller From An Antique Land
by Omnicat
Summary: There was only the essence of chaos left where Arjia used to be, the trunkless legs of stone of a people who had never gotten the chance to be great. / AU, Quorra x Jordan


Vaguely defined AU. Flynn chose to value the Basics a little more, didn't sit by and let them suffer a millennium of terror and oppression for the sake of his own hide, and Reintegrated a decade and a half early. *handwave handwave*

The poem referenced is Percy Shelley's "Ozymandias".

**A Traveller From An Antique Land**

"When Jalen built Arjia here, he had to factor in the effect every building had on the codestream below," Quorra said, deftly stepping between the rubble.

Jordan followed a few steps behind. The surreal landscape was as intriguing as Quorra's voice was heartbreaking. More than at any other point in the year she'd been visiting the Grid, exploring and learning, she felt like she was in an alien world, like the rules of gravity and weight distribution just didn't apply and geography was better expressed in fractal art and a mathematician's crack-addled scribblings. She couldn't make heads or tails of the debris, as an architect or an artist.

Unlike the untouched darkness of the outlands, the ruins of Arjia were an erratic tapestry of every shade of black, grey, white and silver, matte or polished, and dotted with fragments of light. Most looked like the circuits on programs' clothing and could have fit into the palm of her hand, but not far back they had crossed a two foot wide, fissure-like bed of liquid energy that fractured the landscape like a bolt of lightning. Jordan had spotted something like a flickering shattered star that seemed to be floating freely in the air, until she came closer and the light from her scarf revealed the perfect spiral supporting it, only a single pixel in diameter.

"When Clu destroyed the city, he paid no heed to that at all," Quorra went on. "It altered the balance of the entire Grid, and the repercussions of that ultimately cost as many Basic lives as it did ISOs. It was like the poisoning of the Sea all over again. He was so meticulous when he built, but when he destroyed..."

Jordan looked back and groaned. "Sam, don't do that, it's dangerous! You don't know if those rocks are stable enough to hold your weight."

Sam, being twelve years old, went on as he pleased and threw a contemptuous "I'll be fine!" over his shoulder.

"Don't worry, I'll monitor him," Tron said, and darted after him up the craggy slope, lithe as a mountain goat.

The glimmering black Escher formation spewing rainbow-tinted sparks at the top must be what had caught Sam's attention. There was only the essence of chaos left where artfully crafted Arjia used to be. Clu's eradication effort had produced exactly what he had been out to destroy.

"These are _ruins_, Sam," Jordan yelled. "Show some respect!"

"It's fine. This is just junk data," Quorra said. But then, Quorra adored Sam, everything about Sam, and his childishness most of all. She liked the reminder that human children were more like freshly spawned, blank-minded ISOs than newly installed Basics, with their directives, functions, permissions and restrictions within the system clear from the moment they rezzed into it.

"But it was your home once."

Quorra shook her head, her gaze drifting over the rubble. "No. Clu bombed my home until it was nothing but voxels. These structures are fragmented code snippets that got tangled up in each other and clustered together before they could melt back into the codestream."

_Oh,_ Jordan thought, and saw the landscape with whole new eyes.

"These structures serve no purpose for remembrance or rebuilding. This is the first time I've been back here since the Purge, and I doubt many of the other survivors ever gave a thought to returning until Flynn and Clu reintegraged."

Quorra smiled sadly and grabbed her hand as they continued through the maze of detritus. Jordan squeezed it.

"I can't imagine how awful it must be to watch everything crumble to dust the moment it dies or breaks down. To never get to keep any mementos."

"Not really. We have our memories."

"Memories fade."

"Not for us."

"Lucky," Jordan said, trying to recall a clear image of Kevin that didn't come from a video or photograph. She'd made her peace with not being able to bury him twice over now, but it still hurt a little.

"Only half the time," Quorra said. "That's why we place so much stock on rebuilding what wasn't meant to be dismantled."

Jordan shook her head, amazed. "The more I learn about this world, the more it turns out I don't know. In my world we put great stock on memorials and ruins and ancient remains, because it's the only way we can remember the past. Memories are fragile and malleable, and once the people who knew you die, all recollection of you dies with them. Time wipes the slate clean every time. Unless you leave something tangible behind to commemorate you. Your life, your passions, your accomplishments." She sighed. "Yet even then..."

She nudged a spongy-looking protrusion with her boot. It puffed up the more pressure she applied, coming to resemble a pale grey tumbleweed before finally bursting like a bubble of tiny off-white voxels and melting into the ground.

"'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;'" Quorra said. "'Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'"

Jordan nodded.

"I never used to understand that one," Quorra said. Her eyes were distant. "And then the life went out of the Sea, and my people started dying off. One by one. With no-one to take their place." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "I guess the biological life cycle is better after all. Your people continue on when the monuments crumble, but I'm the trunkless legs of stone for my entire race."

Jordan cupped her cheek and gently turned her face toward her. "Not forever. We'll figure this thing out, you, me and the Bradleys and the other ISO survivors."

That brought an impish smile to Quorra's face. "Little brothers and sisters for Sam."

Jordan laughed. "Getting the hang of human familial relationships, are you?"

Grinning, Quorra leaned in for a quick peck of a kiss.

"Brothers and sisters, or cousins. Better yet, both," Jordan said, linking their hands again. "And I'll build you a city, like Jalen did Radia. Whichever of our races the kids take after, they'll have that. Not these ruins. A living city for all of you."

"For all of us..." Quorra murmured, lost in thought.

"Troooon," Sam whined somewhere behind them. "It was fine until you butted in. And I already said I'm sorry."

"It was the furthest thing from 'fine'. What kind of half-coded program do you take me for? Do you really think my leg would look like this if it was 'fine'?"

"But – but you can put those pieces back, right?"

"_No."_

Quorra looked back just in time to see Sam's expression fall from petulance to horror.

Jordan whipped around. "Sam Flynn, _what_ did you do?" she demanded, stomping off in the direction of her son and his banged-up babysitter.

While Jordan tore into the beta User, Tron hobbled over to Quorra, handed her his disc, and whispered, "Give me a gridbug claw to tide me over until I can get a proper patch job. That'll teach him."

He had to clamp a hand over her mouth to stifle her uncontrollable laughter.

As Quorra opened his disc and scrolled through the code, she thought: _Not just us For Sea ISOs, new ISOs, humans, and Basics alike. That's what Radia meant Arjia for, and what Flynn dreamed the grid would be. For everyone._


End file.
